I’ve spent a busy summer working around the country, but in my down time I have been doing what I can to live The Good Life. Some of this has worked much better than others. My personal crop of lettuce was a success til the slugs found it, and of the herbs grown from seed I do believe the rosemary has a fighting chance to be taken from its protective pot and graduate in spring to being Planted Out in the beds.

I’ve even had remarkable success with a chilli plant purchased on the reduced aisle at Tesco and repotted into the greenhouse. For the past three months my nam prik pla has had homegrown chillies (the way that the Thais would certainly approve of!) and the kick in the salsa has been entirely of my making.

But my tomatoes. Oh, my precious, lovely tomatoes. I have watched the plants grow into fine young beings, tall (but not too tall!!) enough to make any mother proud. I had visions of Moneymaker’s bountiful crop providing tomatoes for everyone in the district. Roma’s tomatoes would be special, I would experiment with sun drying them (a real plausible option this summer, dag-nab-it!). I was going to introduce them to some wonderful herbs and the freshest olive oil in Norfolk to create juicy, delicious sun blushed and preserved tomatoes to sustain me through the long dark winter. Too good even for my salsa (sorry chillies), the Roma tomatoes were destined for greatness, destined to be savoured, destined to be worshiped…

But what happened?!

Instead of plentiful crops, I have beautiful plants with only one or two fruit. Other bloggers boast about what to do and I am struggling to make my babies grow and mature into red young adults. I love them, I check on them daily, I moved them in and out of the greenhouse as the weather dictated. And when I wasn’t able to give them my full attention because I was drinking energy drinks in Scotland, or Stratford, or elsewhere, for the week in order to pay for my little tomatoes upkeep, they were being carefully looked after by my less enthusiastic but equally dedicated other half. I have watered them with rainwater, but not given them any fertiliser. Is that really where I have gone wrong?

Please give me some advice, my tomatoes need you before it gets too cold and they give me up for good!

Like this:

If I was going to write a post about all things that are sweet and sour I think that blackberry vodka may well fit the bill.

While walking Pepper the other day I saw that the hedgerows were filled with ripe, juicy, jewel like blackberries. Hundreds of them. They looked amazing. So yummy. I could make any number of things, but of course my mind went straight to the vodka that was laying in the wine rack feeling a bit sorry for itself as September officially became The Month We Weren’t Drinking. (Yup, another story entirely.) Rather than going straight out to gather the bounty nature offered, I decided to procrastinate for a week. Then the weather started to turn and I was left with no more excuses. It was actually really nice, there had been a particularly miserable rainstorm during the day but the sun was out, the air was fresh and I had tupperware and a boy willing to go blackberry hunting with me. We were off!

After collecting as many berries as we could before the sun set (autumn is drawing in, ahhhhh….sad to see summer go but excited about curling up on the sofa again) it was a fairly straightforward plan. A slight surplus of vodka following an August bank holiday party meant we had a few options and we settled on three separate recipes:

Bottle 1 – Sweet Vanilla Blackberry Vodka

300g blackberries

300g sugar

500ml ‘student’ vodka

1 vanilla pod

Bottle 2 – Fancy Vanilla Blackberry Vodka

300g blackberries

200g sugar

500ml ‘grown up’ vodka

1 vanilla pod

Bottle 3 – Grown Up Blackberry Vodka

300g blackberries

200g sugar

500ml ‘grown up’ vodka

All ingredients were put into their separate kilner jars. They looked really pretty.

And then we shook them like the proverbial polaroid picture.

Now they look dark and juicy and …. okay, a little sugary. But a bit more agitation over the next few weeks will hopefully do wonders and there will be a tasting session to see which recipe is the winner…once the Month of No Drinking has passed by and it’s well into curling up on the sofa season. Ahh, Autumn, you’re pretty cool!

Like this:

Mmmm….The Good Life. They have a pig, grow all their own vegetables and gently mock their neighbours. There’s definitely something to be said about it. My Good Life is kind of limited to a couple of (slow to ripen) tomato plants, a chili plant I saved from the reduced section in Tesco and a courgette plant that has not delivered the glut of giant green beasts I had slightly hoped for, rather more delicate little yellow zucchini that actually complement a salad rather well. Providing you aren’t too hungry though, because there really haven’t been that many.

Imagine my delight when I received a bag full of allotment grown beetroot. “Delight” is perhaps a strong word, but I did get a little excited as I decided what to do with them. I could roast them (with chillies, balsamic and maybe some cherry tomatoes if my plants ever do decide to let the fruit ripen?). I could chip them, cutting them into crisp sized slices and popping them in the oven. Tyrrells can do it, why can’t I? (I did try it. Tyrrells obviously either deep fry them, which would be yummy but rubbish for the diet, or have bigger, hotter ovens. My beetroot chips were a little bit gooey.) But really, there was only one option when you think of beetroot, you pickle them!

People who know me well know that I would happily eat my own mother if she was nicely pickled (no reference to your wine intake mum, I promise!) but I have never tried to actually pickle anything for myself. I love pickles. One of my lifetime highlights was eating McDonalds with 6 other people, who all gave me their burger pickles. Moving to England, it was the discovery of pickled onions that got me through the withdrawal I suffered when decent dill pickle spears were no longer available in supermarkets. Piccalilli is a recent discovery in my world, but by golly it’s a great addition to any boring salad. And don’t even get me started on just how many jalapenos I could actually fit onto my cinema nachos. Pickling my beetroot was clearly the way forward.

I love a good Google and I found my recipe on the Down to Earth blog. It has a really awesome step by step how-to and I have to admit that sterilising the jars in the oven was quite a revelation to me. I mean, seriously – heat kills germs? A whole new world has opened to me. I think I will preserve *everything* that crosses my path now.

Of course I took pictures. Any questions, let me know!

First you boil…

…then you peel (wear your asbestos hands obvs!)….

…slice….

…..and PICKLE!!! Yay!!

I told you I got my hands on a lot of beetroot. More is coming my way. I have already tried to mix it up with a giant jar containing some sliced onion (I found a Polish recipe online. I didn’t follow it but I did steal the onion idea, except I didn’t have a red onion). I might try some chilli beetroot with some homegrown chillies. What else should I experiment with? The Good Life is so on its way…but do I really have to wait til October before I can try it?